I was never too fond of my chemistry classes during high school. One of the reasons was because of my disappointment when I realized that chemistry wasn’t all about making bubbly fluorescent concoctions or blowing up chemicals as shown on the TV. All the hands on experiments that we had seemed too ’safe’ to be interesting. This great chemistry class in UK though, proved me wrong and demonstrated how classroom chemistry can also be interesting and dangerous - as long as enough safety precautions were taken to ensure the experiment was under control.

The chemistry teacher tried to illustrate the difference between heating up liquid and powdered milk. Applying a flame to liquid milk didn’t do anything much to it except turn it into a warm beverage, however with just a small spark on the powdered milk, it instantly combusted into fumes. The dynamic ignition of the milk experiment surely would have left a strong blast in the students mind on the impacts of a large surface area for chemical reactions.

Read the full news article here and view a slide show of some shots taken from the chemistry class here.